A piano doesn’t make any music.
Oh nothing wrong with the piano itself. It is the same for a guitar or a saxophone.
We say “playing the piano”, but we should say “using a piano to make music”.
OK, you start to think that I am playing with words now.
Not really. Bear with me a minute, it will start to make sense.
A piano is just an object, a tool that we can use to produce sounds.
The music doesn’t come from the piano but from YOU.
You are the instrument that creates the music, the piano is a medium to transform the music you have in you into sound waves audible by anybody.
Being a musician means that you have the ability to express feelings, ideas through a musical instrument.
If you don’t create the music in you, you will only learn how to press keys following a set of instructions (the music sheet) like a robot. A smart and skilled robot, but still a robot.
On the contrary, you have the music in you from birth. You already played some music with your voice at a very early age with joy.
I am not kidding, just listen to a baby cooing, bubbling, pulling raspberries: he/she is clearly having fun making sounds and creating a sort of music.
Lots of us then forget that we have this into ourselves. Except maybe in the shower when we start to sing or hum (guilty!).
Playing the piano is simply a more sophisticated way of putting out the music we all have in ourselves.
It is a complex instrument to master, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t play it from the start.
Like baby pianists.
Think about it for a moment: you don’t need to know how to read to be able to speak.
Like all young children but also adults who can’t read, but know how to speak and even pretty well.
Don’t get me wrong, reading music sheets has its place in learning the piano.
But not for anyone and certainly not from the start.
It often puts a big obstacle between piano learners and music, which leads to discouragement, frustration. For nothing actually. Because you could use this energy to learn how to play hundreds of songs and create your own.
This and something else.
Another obstacle that can totally block people from making progress, play what they love, and even getting started sometimes.
What’s this obstacle?
Talent.
Or the lack of talent to be more accurate.
About that, I’ve got another secret for you…
